Tag Archives: Celebration

Last week, I mentioned my daughter’s bat mitzvah, and the beautiful invitations that we sent out. As part of the celebrations, we also wanted to jazz things up a bit, and so my wife decided to speak to somebody about décor options.

We didn’t want to have an overly fancy, lavish setup, nor were we interested in going crazy with our budget. We did want to have a nice centerpiece on each table, some décor for the buffet area, a guest book so our daughter would have a souvenir to remember things by, and we also needed to have something for the table cards. While some people go crazy depending on what type of celebration you’re having, we wanted to keep things somewhat low key but still elegant, whimsical and special.

Enter Lori from Behind the Scenes Creations. My wife had been referred to a few people, but as soon as she spoke to Lori, she knew she had found someone she could work with….something just clicked. Lori was creative, energetic, warm and understood our need to stay within our budget.

For the centerpieces, one of the themes throughout the function was the pineapple because it’s my daughter’s favourite fruit (and the symbol for hospitality). As a result, Lori put a pineapple on each table, on an attractive wooden platform, alongside a terrarium with cacti and succulents (another one of my daughter’s favourite things). For the table cards, Lori handmade mini glass terrariums that mimicked the centerpieces, that were filled with live succulents. Lori built stand up letters for the buffet, using flowers, for my daughter’s name. Lastly, Lori suggested we put together a nice photo album (we did this at Costco) that everyone could sign.

With the exception of the photo album, Lori put together all of these items on her own. Recognizing the manual labour that went into these pieces, I’m still amazed she was able to do this….and at an extremely reasonable price.

The telltale sign of success were the compliments we received. Whether it was the comments regarding the centrepieces, the numerous people who asked to take a centerpiece (and the pineapples!) home and the many, many, MANY compliments on the table cards, Lori obviously is doing something right. If you’re in need of a superb event and decorations planner, someone that you will love working with, I implore you to consider Lori. She did a fantastic job of bringing our vision to life for us.

Several weeks ago, my daughter turned 13 and had her Bat Mitzvah. As part of the celebration, we had a luncheon for friends and family. In the lead up to the event, one of the things we needed to do was to send out invitations to all the guests. While everyone does this a little differently…by email, handwritten notes, online invitation services, etc…..my wife wanted to send out a professional, beautiful paper invitations that was appropriate for this particular celebration.

My wife spoke to a few of her colleagues and met with a few different invitation designers. One of them was Gail Agensky, owner of Paper Heart Custom Invitations. As soon as my wife met with Gail, she knew she was going to be “The Person.” Gail was always responsive in terms of calls and emails, she was creative, she was always available to talk even before we put down the deposit, and she was always making suggestions for the theme of the card. It was no contest…my wife decided we were going to use Gail for this work – she was the one that could create the elegantly whimsical invitation. My wife also loved the idea of supporting a woman in a small Canadian business.

In addition to coming up with a stunning invitation and envelope, she also suggested a thank you card, using the same style and theme. Gail even helped us design a customized stamp so everything would be tied together nicely. She was also reasonable in terms of price, compared to other quotes we received. Gail obviously knows that a combination of great work and reasonable pricing is the recipe for success.

Aside from getting many, many MANY compliments on our invitations, when we mentioned her name, people have said they know and use Gail, and have nothing but great things to say about her and the highest regard for her work.

If you’re looking for a creative person to do beautiful graphics, Gail and Paper Heart Custom Invitations should be your first and only stop!